Wednesday 12th February – Windsurf ** - River Orwell - Levington – sunny.

F2 Zantos 295 with 36 fin and Tushingham Lightning 6.5m.

Fin – 27.29 knot max., 25.27 knot ave., 7.00 knot hour, 22.81 knot mile, 13.10 km., 17.77 knot Alpha.

My second poor session in two days, shame really as both really sunny days but sadly both on the nippy side and thank goodness we are off to the mountains soon as I am now officially fed up of all this really windy/cold weather with Storm Denis arriving at the weekend with heavy rain an added bonus! I did think long and hard about going today but it was such a lovely winters day and with the wind in the west, a top direction for Levington I decided to give it a try. I waited until gone eleven giving it time to warm up a little getting to a balmy 6/7 degrees in the end but it is very hard on my poor old hands:( I half expected it to be a foiling day but on arriving at the marina was surprised getting 25 mph on the gauge with much more wind in the middle of the river with the wind WNW. There have been some super high tides just lately so parked a little bit away from the river and set up my 6.5 for the 133lt. Felixstowe windsurfers Mark Swain recently home from a top holiday in El Medano who is working at the marina came over for a chat so I didn’t have to go for a wander looking for someone to do my wetsuit up! On taking my sail to the small beach to attach it to my board and it had gone! The wind had unfortunately blown it over the rocks putting a nice hole in the bottom:( So it was looking like for the second day in a row I had probably rigged too big! There were some big gusts in the middle and the river was very choppy so not great. I had a couple of short runs across the river before heading down towards Felixstowe dock looking for some smoother water. I made the mistake of landing on the gusty sheltered Shotley side to adjust my harness lines and then had trouble setting off again, not helped by several wooden post groynes in the way! I got going in the end returning to the far end of the marina. I had one more long run but with the wind gusting to 35 mph and the river uncomfortably lumpy it was not much fun so returned to the far end of the marina. With the wind very strong, the river very bumpy and my hands very cold I decided to walk around the marina back to the van, at least that way I could get my wetsuit undone on the way! Wave sailor Michael Archer had arrived to practice some moves, in the end the wind had eased and he was a bit underpowered:( I have never seen the river so high as I left for home!

I got home in good time but Mag was out I decided to head down to Felixstowe seafront to check out the high water. It had been high with a lot of shingle on the prom and the beach lovely and sandy like Point Clear was:) As I was walking along I spotted a nice piece of coal and went in have a closer look. Then I came across Roger a birdwatcher we usually see when out on our bikes looking for amber amongst a big dump of coal, the most I had seen in a couple of years. Roger gave me a plastic bag and I soon collected 6k and was surprised to see Mag also collecting coal from the other end of the groyne:) In the end we got nearly 10 k which will keep our open fire going for a couple of night!

PS – I am looking for a reasonably priced second-hand GT-31, can anyone help?

https://www.facebook.com/stephen.squirrell.1/media_set?set=a.10217737277236327&type=3

http://mkwindsurfing.co.uk/booms/